1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a printing condition determining apparatus, a printing condition determining method, and a storage medium for determining a printing condition representing a combination of two or more condition items concerning printing.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, CTP (Computer To Plate) technology for directly producing printing plates from electronic data without the need for generating any intermediate products has been in widespread use in the printing field. For example, if a printing company determines that an order has been newly placed by a production company, which is similar to an order that was placed in the past, it is convenient for the printing company to employ a printing condition used for the past order, and to carry out a printing job according to such a printing condition. In this case, “printing condition” refers to a composite printing condition representing a combination of two or more condition items concerning printing. There have been proposed in the art various user interfaces, which enable the user to determine a printing condition from a plurality of selectable printing conditions based on search operations made by the user.
Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2004-206553 discloses a method and software for searching for certain condition items from a given list of condition items, and for displaying a setting screen depending on condition items that have been found. More specifically, the publication discloses the aggregation of setting sections for a plurality of selected condition items for display in one setting screen.
The condition items referred to above may include general items that can be set, e.g., a type of printing machine and a type of sheets, and also items concerning temperature and humidity environments, e.g., temperature and humidity. For example, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2007-134935 and Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2005-212246 reveal apparatus and methods for preparing a plurality of different color converting conditions, e.g., a lookup table, and performing a color conversion process for images based on color converting conditions suitable for present temperature and humidity environments.